About Japanese Sign Language

by Karen Nakamura
accesses since Deceber 17, 1995.
This page was last updated on Feb 18, 2007.

A short note about referencing this work:

Please note that if you are using this page as a reference in your school
term paper or report, that you should follow standard citation methods in
order to prevent any accusations of plagiarism. One way to cite this would
be: Nakamura, Karen (2002) "About Japanese Sign Language." Web site.
<http://www.deaflibrary.org/jsl.html>.

Japanese Sign Language (JSL) is a family of complex visual-spatial
languages used by Deaf communities in Japan.
There is no single standard JSL, although the Tokyo form does have
some hegemonic force since many of the TV broadcasts and meetings
are sponsored by Tokyo Deaf groups.
The national sign languages in Taiwan
and Korea apparently have incorporated some JSL signs and forms
from the colonial occupation of these countries by Japan prior
to World War II.

Japanese Sign Language is distinct from spoken/written Japanese
in both grammar and lexicon, although many Deaf signers will use Manually Coded Japanese / Pidgin
Signed Japanese when signing to hearing or non-native JSL signers.
The grammatical system shares many similarities with other national
sign languages in its use of the complex visual space available,
classifiers, and other complex forms.

Interestingly, JSL, ASL, and spoken Japanese all
use a topic-comment grammatical system. This makes
JSL and spoken Japanese more compatible than ASL and
spoken English. This is one explanation for widespread
use of MCJ / voiced JSL / Pidgin JSL forms present
in Japan.

JSL appears to be a much "younger" language form than
many other national sign languages. The first school for the deaf was
established in Kyoto in 1878 and we have very little evidence for sign
language communities before that time (although they no doubt existed in
small pockets). The current form of fingerspelling was introduced in the early 20th century and
is based on the fingerspellling used in Spain, France, and the United States.
However, many older deaf do not know the fingerspelling forms or numerals and
most Deaf born before the end of World War II (1948) did not attend school since
it was only after the war that compulsory education for the Deaf was instituted.

JSL doesn't appear nearly as standardized as ASL (although ASL also has
geographic and cultural/ethnic variation). Signs from the northern
island (Hokkaido) are different from Tokyo signs; which are different
from some southern signs. Nevertheless, if you are more or less fluent,
it's easy to learn the variations although it does cause more problems
when signing in front of a crowd of people from different areas.

Like the U.S., there is a signed form of Japanese -- Pidgin Signed
Japanese (PSJ) or Manually Signed Japanese (MSJ).
Most schools are orally based, but by the middle/high school level,
some integrate some sign forms (usually MSJ; rarely JSL) into
the classroom. Unfortunately, schools that allow manual forms in
the classroom are still in the minority. Recent policy shifts from
the Ministry of Education seem to encourage more sign language use
in the future.

American Sign Languge (ASL) makes extensive use of fingerspelling
and the morphology of some signs is related to an English word that
distinguishes it from its general class (for example: FAMILY, GROUP,
CLASS; all use the same basic morpheme (the hands moving in a circle
inwards outwords; then use an additional morpheme derived from English
'F', 'G', or 'C' to distinguish between them). This shows the close
relationship ASL has had with English; much like English has many
load words from French (restaurant; clique) that help make word/meaning
distinctions that English originally didn't make.

JSL seems to make more use of mouthing in order to distinguish between
signs. Whereas ASL would use the inital letter of the English word to distinguish, JSL
uses the word mouthing. People in the U.S. have told me American Deaf also
do this to a small amount as well; but it seems also in prevalent use in Europe.
For example, the sign for "INTERPRETER (TSUUYAKU)" is the thumb of the closed fist of the dominant
hand moving left-right in front of the mouth. This is also the sign to "INTRODUCE (SHOUKAI)".
The two sign-meanings are differentiated by context and by mouthing.

JSL has fingerspelling, but many people don't use it widely. I saw a lot of what I would call
"air writing" -- especially of numbers and English letters -- instead
of fingerspelling at the national Deaf meeting. Fingerspelling is not
used much in normal conversation, certainly not as much as ASL.
For personal names and place names, there
is a standardized set of "Kanji" signs that allow you to spell out your
name using the Chinese characters in sign form. Mouthing is also used
when spelling out names.

As with ASL in the US, JSL is becoming more popular in
Japan among hearing people. There is now a weekly
television show on the public TV station NHK that teaches
JSL and some news broadcasts and other shows are open
captioned with a JSL signer. Close captioning is not
widespread, but is increasing. Something new two summers ago (1996)
was a satellite TV station dedicated totally to the deaf
and hearing impaired (including elderly late-deafened).
Unfortunately it apparently went bankrupt due to mismanagement.
The Japanese Federation of the Deaf is planning their own TV broadcasts
using a new Communications Satellite (CS) system.

The best way to learn some Japanese signs is to order the
English Dictionary of Basic Japanese Signs from
the Japanese Federation of the Deaf.
Send them an e-mail asking them for pricing and shipping information.

If you have any suggestions on how I can improve this page,
please let me know. My e-mail address is listed on the main page.
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Karen's Deaf resource library.